The bottom line is clear: Our vital interests in Afghanistan are limited and military victory is not the key to achieving them. On the contrary, waging a lengthy counterinsurgency war in Afghanistan may well do more to aid Taliban recruiting than to dismantle the group, help spread conflict further into Pakistan, unify radical groups that might otherwise be quarreling amongst themselves, threaten the long-term health of the U.S. economy, and prevent the U.S. government from turning its full attention to other pressing problems. -- Afghanistan Study Group

“This attack is abhorrent and a grave violation of International
Humanitarian Law,” said Meinie Nicolai, MSF President. “We demand total
transparency from Coalition forces. We cannot accept that this horrific
loss of life will simply be dismissed as ‘collateral damage’.”

MSF said that for more than an hour, beginning at 2:08am, their hospital
was hit by a series of aerial bombing raids every 15 minutes. The main
central hospital building, housing the intensive care unit, emergency
rooms, and physiotherapy ward, was repeatedly hit very precisely during
each aerial raid.

“The bombs hit and then we heard the plane
circle round,” said Heman Nagarathnam, MSF Head of Programmes in
northern Afghanistan. “There was a pause, and then more bombs hit. This
happened again and again.

“When I made it out from the office,
the main hospital building was engulfed in flames. Those people that
could had moved quickly to the building’s two bunkers to seek safety.
But patients who were unable to escape burned to death as they lay in
their beds.”

UN rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein says that an attack on a hospital is a war crime.